Daily Bulletin

Tuesday, May 25, 1999

15,000 offered places at UW

How to vote in Ontario election

New theatre company hits stage

Paving the ring road, and more

15,000 offered places at UW

Staff vote on paydays

Ballots were counted Friday afternoon in the staff referendum on
moving from once-a-month pay to twice a month. The staff compensation
committee is to meet this afternoon to see the results of the vote,
and an announcement is expected after the meeting.

UW has offered admission to 15,150 students for this September, calculating
that that's how many offers it will take to get 4,005 full-time first-
year students for next fall.

Figures from Peter Burroughs, the director of
admissions, say 397
offers of admission have been made to
high schoolers for 270 places in computer engineering
-- a high-demand field this year -- and 1,445 offers for 837 places in
co-op mathematics, including computer science. But there are fields where
many students who are offered admission to UW don't accept: for regular
programs in science, for example, UW has sent out 1,533 acceptances for
320 places.

Burroughs says 13,806 Ontario "grade 13" students have been offered
admission to UW, though not always to their first-choice program.
Another 1,344 offers have gone to students from other backgrounds, such as
out-of-province, out-of-country, and "mature" students returning to
university from the workforce.

UW sent refusals to another 3,833 high school students and 1,525 other students,
Burroughs said. His figures indicate that about
5,000 of those offered admission were "cleared" or "deflected" from
one program to another -- from engineering to science, from math to
arts, from computer engineering to civil engineering.
Of the 23,203 people who applied to UW, including some for whom UW hasn't
yet made an admission decision, 8,041 gave some Waterloo program as
their first choice.

Some of the offers of admission were sent as early as March, but the bulk of
them were mailed to arrive in applicants' mailboxes last Tuesday. Students now
have until
June 1 to say whether they're going to accept and register at UW in
September. A few dozen acceptances had already arrived by late last week.

The perennial question is what marks it takes to get into UW.
Preliminary results show that the "admission range" was in the "low to
mid 90's" for computer and electrical engineering, in the "mid to high
80's" for co-op math, "low to mid-80's" for regular math, "high 80's" for
health studies, accountancy, chemical and civil engineering, "low 70's"
for arts regular programs.

How to vote in Ontario election

An all-candidates forum at noon tomorrow will give the campus community an
opportunity to hear a discussion of the issues in the coming
Ontario election -- especially those related to education.

"The Federation of Students has an obligation to remain non-partisan,"
says Veronica Chau, vice-president (education) for the Feds. "We
can't endorse or come out against a party." What the Federation
can, and will, do is
"inform students about education policies and let them decide," she says.
"We want them realize how important this election is for students."

Chau estimates there is a student population of 8,000 to 10,000 in the area
this term, including students on campus, those on co-op work terms in
Kitchener-Waterloo, and others living and working in the community.
"It's the size of a small town" -- and one that has the potential to
make a real impact in the election, she believes.

With changes in election procedures, students are not being enumerated
before the vote. Voters lists will be compiled from the results of the last
enumeration. That works against transient populations, including students,
who have relocated since the last election.

Students who are eligible to vote (Canadian citizens, age 18 or over,
residing in the K-W electoral district) have several options, says Chau after
talking with the local chief returning officer. They can vote in the
riding of their permanent residence, have someone in their home riding vote
for them by proxy, obtain a Certificate to Vote from the K-W electoral
office before election day, or go to the polls on election day with
identification to prove place of residence.

Students who decide to vote locally and aren't on the list before
voting day should show up at the polls with
one identification document with name, address and signature (such as
a driver's licence), or
two identification documents, one with name and signature and one with
name and address. Examples could include health card, hospital card,
citizenship card, passport, utility bill, phone bill or credit card. As
proof of address, students may also bring to the poll an envelope they have
received in the mail with their name and address on it.

The Feds' election
committee is using a number of strategies to get the message out.
Brochures and posters are being produced to explain voting procedures and
address education issues. Working in co-operation with the faculty
association, the committee is sponsoring the all-candidates debate
tomorrow in the Student Life Centre.
Candidates are being asked to explain their stand on education issues in a
survey, and the idea of transporting
students to the polls using available vans on campus is being explored.

On June 2, just a day before the election, a free "Rock the Vote" concert
is scheduled for noon at the Student Life Centre. Students will be given
information about voting procedures in a way that should "get them excited
about voting," says Chau.

Already excited, and keeping busy updating his
election-related web
page, is Milton Chan, a second-year computer engineering student at
UW. His current prediction is for 32 ridings to go Progressive Conservative,
30 Liberal, and 7 New Democrat, with 34 listed as "too close to call".

New theatre company hits stage

Twenty young actors are launching a festival of musical theatre this summer. UW
is co-sponsoring Second Company's summer season at Theatre
of the Arts, providing discounted rates for use of theatre space and
housing for the troupe, made up of UW drama students, students from
graduate and undergraduate programs at other universities, and
recent graduates.

Second Company director Brent Krysa recently graduated from the opera
program at the University of Toronto.
Members from UW include students Shira Ginsler, Chris Goddard, and
his brother, Brad.

"You'd be hard pressed to find so much talent in one spot," says Brad
Goddard about the 14 singers who form the core of the group. As project
coordinator for the company, Goddard is expanding his own theatre
experience, which up to now has been at stage front with roles in a number
of UW productions, including, most recently, "Goodnight Desdemona, Good
Morning Juliet".
Working behind the scenes, he'll be keeping tabs on grant money -- $201,000
for wages from Youth Service Canada, a Human Resources Development Canada
program -- as well as serving as publicist and dealing with corporate
supporters.

"We still need to do a lot of corporate handshaking," he adds, to finance
an ambitious season including "The Secret Garden" (this Thursday to June 12),
"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (July 21 to August 8),
"Candide: In Concert" (August 18 to 22), and Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute",
scheduled for Oktoberfest.

In developing the program, says Goddard, Second Company "partly followed
the passions of the people in the company and partly tried to fill a need
in Kitchener-Waterloo," staking out its turf as the "only summer festival
of musical theatre" in the community.

The not-quite-professional company is "aiming for a professional
feel," he says. Costumes and props will be borrowed from the drama
department and rented from the Stratford Festival. To top off the season, a
28-piece orchestra will be brought in to accompany "The Magic Flute".

The program will include a community outreach initiative,
with a series of staged readings, scenes and songs from the plays performed
at libraries, bookstores and seniors' homes.

UW drama department chair Joel Greenberg is impressed not only with the
talent, but with the ambitions of the group, which "takes themselves very
seriously." He's especially proud of his daughter, Jessica, a member of the
Second Company and a recent graduate of McGill University. She'll be
heading off to theatre school in New York City next fall.

Ticket reservations: 578-1570.

Paving the ring road, and more

Seems as though I made a mistake in Friday's Bulletin when I
said the plant operations department is planning on repaving the
ring road "from
Physical Activities to the Student Life Centre" this summer.
Says Gene Starchuk of plant ops: "We
will actually be repaving the ring road from Psychology to the Student Life
Centre. I suspect someone confused PAS and PAC." That would be me, I
suspect. And Tom Galloway, director of custodial and grounds services,
has a little more to say about the repaving job, noting that the
Modern Languages access road will also be included: "The design will
likely include some additional short term layby parking for Needles Hall.
There will be significant interruption for a few weeks during
construction."

The pension and benefits committee is meeting this morning,
8:30 to noon in Needles Hall room 3004. Agenda items include the
way parts of the pension fund are invested, and (again) the sick-leave
and long-term disability benefit for staff and faculty.

"Critical Mass" and "Angela" will be playing at Siegfried Hall,
St. Jerome's University, this evening. Says David Wang of UW's
electrical and computer engineering department, who's a member of
"Critical Mass": "They just
played to a greatly appreciative crowd of 1,000 at the
Sound and Spirit '99 music festival in Buffalo. Starting time is 7:00 and
admission is $5. This event is a fundraiser for the Immaculate Heart of Mary
School. Both these Catholic rock bands have received rave reviews in
the press."

The physics department presents a seminar today by
Matteo
Pellegrini of the Molecular Biology Institute at the University of
California at Los Angeles. He'll speak at 2:30 in Physics room 308.

Three brown bag lunches are planned this term by the
Employee Assistance Program, starting with one tomorrow on "Living
Our Losses". "The reality is that any loss that causes a significant
change to our lives is a life loss," says Marilyn Hollinger, a
social worker associated with the E. R. Good Funeral Home, who will
give tomorrow's talk, at 12 noon in Davis Centre room 1304. Scheduled
later in the summer: "Breast Cancer Update" June 18, and "Assertive
Communications" July 21.

The career development seminar series continues, with a session
tomorrow on "Selling Your Skills" (10:30 a.m., Needles Hall room 1020).
This Saturday, interested students can attend a day-long career development
session, covering everything from self-assessment to employer research
and letter-writing; register in advance with the career resource centre
in Needles Hall, phone ext. 4047.

And here's a reminder that Trellis,
the computer system of the
libraries at UW, Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of
Guelph, is out of operation for an upgrade. The shutdown began during
the long weekend, and is expected to end tonight. "Library services will
be maintained at as near a normal level as possible," says Linda Teather,
coordinator of library systems support services.